We can appoint a repository as a place of deposit under s 4 (1) of the act, to hold certain classes of public records which are not held at The National Archives.

Public records can be transferred to a place of deposit under s 4 (3) of the act. The public record body should write to the place of deposit to confirm the transfer of records and the place of deposit should then confirm in writing with the public record body when all the records have been received.

Sometimes the transfer of records should be made using a statutory instrument. This is most common when records are transferred from one place of deposit to another.

If a place of deposit wants to hold types of public records other than those for which they have been approved, they need to contact us for approval. We ensure classes of public records are deposited with similar records so that collections develop and are easily accessible.

Presentations or gifts

Sometimes repositories receive a record as a presentation or gift. This is when a public record not selected for permanent preservation is passed to repositories under section 3 (6) of the act and the record loses its public record status. Any suitable repository can therefore receive a presentation, and not just a place of deposit.

Records deposited as presentations or gifts are described in the National Register of Archives (NRA) rather than in the place of deposit schedule. Information from the NRA has now been incorporated into Discovery, our catalogue.